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The Art of Celebrating Cancer

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Deliverance.

3 days. 3 days until life as I know it changes again. A neck dissection is my next venture. My first surgery was a radical neck dissection and this one will be similar. The goal is to leave everything be except the tumors, but since I had radiation first it’s hard to know how ugly things will be on the inside. Last time they removed everything, muscle and glands, everything…I mean everything but the very vital things to make my neck function. So a neck dissection is no walk in the park.

I wrote in my last blog about how this was all kind of sudden, like I didn’t have a lot of time to wrap my mind around it all. Then the Lord did something truly amazing.

On Sunday my church had a prayer night where they dedicated a portion of the hour to pray for me. I must admit, initially I was uncomfortable at the thought of all that attention, which sounds kind of dumb as a write it considering it’s prayer! Anyway I need to start from the beginning of my Sunday. The day started out with my Dad preaching as a guest at the First Church of God. He preached on suffering, a subject we are all quite familiar with by now. So I won’t explain the whole sermon, but if you are able to you should hear it! One thing really stuck out to me, “God will deliver you from your suffering.” If you are a believer in Christ then you WILL be delivered. Now for me that can mean deliverance here on Earth through the miracle of being healed, or that can mean deliverance through death and my suffering ending because I’m in heaven. Either wayI will be delivered from my suffering. This brought a lot of comfort to me, there is already victory, what feels like a lose lose situation has in fact already been defeated by Jesus. I WILL BE DELIVERED. There will be an end to this suffering, there is a light at the end of the tunnel. What peace and hope this idea can bring! The church service ended with the congregation praying for me.

Then came the prayer hour. Side note on prayer. I know there are thousands of people praying for me. I read the comments, get the messages, see the texts, you guys are everywhere, praying! It’s just so different for me to have a visual, to be there while people pray, it’s surreal almost. Anyway, it was an amazing night, it was emotional for sure, but watching everyone around me, though they were crying and begging God to heal me, it wasn’t a depressing sight, it was a sight of worship. Of glorifying God, we were all speaking to Him together. I heard this song lyric,

“Even what the enemy means for evil
You turn it for our good
You turn it for our good and for Your glory
Even in the valley, You are faithful
You’re working for our good
You’re working for our good and for Your glory”

and I couldn’t help but feel in that moment, that those words were true. Cancer, sickness, and suffering, God has turned it for my good and His glory. It’s undeniable. It was undeniable as I looked at my brothers and sisters praying, crying out to Him in faith. Proclaiming His name. I even found out later that there was a church in China with 13,000, yes that is the correct number, 13,000 people, who were praying for me at the same time.

So, this surgery may work, it may not. I may be healed from cancer on this Earth, I may not. And if not, He is still good, because I WILL be delivered either way.